


Karen Taylor bio

by A Magiluna Stormwriter (ariestess), Shatterpath



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-17
Updated: 2012-04-17
Packaged: 2017-11-03 19:30:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/385041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariestess/pseuds/A%20Magiluna%20Stormwriter, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shatterpath/pseuds/Shatterpath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An 'interview' with Karen about her past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Karen Taylor bio

I can’t think of any one thing that changed the course of my life. It seems that my constant misery was enough of a solid jumping off point.

My parents were old money, as stuffy and reclusive as any old-world royalty. It was a loveless marriage that was more of a business merger. In due course, I was produced and handed over to nannies with stuffy enough credentials and references for a baby of my status. That was how I developed the ability to love without ever getting in too deep. The trick even worked until first, Anastasia, then Dace and later, the Farazell girls, but that’s a whole ‘nother story.

Now, I liked my nannies just fine, but I knew that they weren’t family, not exactly. Mother would check in on me periodically, but always seemed faintly distasteful of my tiny, dependant self. I would be trotted out to be admired beside the papered dog at gatherings, then sent off again with the servants. So each of the men and women that were kind to me would get a little grain of my heart, but only a teeny bit, because I never wanted to run out and was never entirely certain how long they would stay. Being under the reign of my parents wasn’t easy.

At about three years old was when my world began to make sense to me, and I realized even at that tender age that the only person I could rely on was me. That’s the revelation that saved me from becoming a complete nutcase. It’s astonishing really, that I came out relatively normal. So, I hoarded my heart and kept an eye on the currents of life around me with the predatory eye of a hungry shark.

School was a welcome blessing. Hell, for a kid like me, boarding school was heaven. There were kids my age, and adults that took care of me. There, I was much more willing to share my heart, even as I was still very careful who received the blessing of my affections. Even in preschool, terrified and exhilarated by all the strangers suddenly all around, I discovered several important lessons. First, that I could intimidate the other kids into a kind of awe, but I had to be careful how I did it, or I would get in trouble. I was the most dangerous kind of bully, because it was extremely rare that anyone could prove that I was doing it. I learned to reward my minions to keep them happy and obedient. Scary how young the dominating tendencies show, huh?

The second important lesson I learned was to soak everything in. I’m no smarter than the bulk of humanity, but I could never stay within my own dance space, so to speak. Everything was a curiosity to me and I wanted it all. I eavesdropped on teachers, I joined every club and sport I could cram into my schedule. The more I knew and understood, the fewer surprises I would get jumped by. It was a brilliant tactic, and I was practically running my snotty New York prep school by the time I was ten. With a subtle combination of charm, observations that bordered on blackmail, and intimidation, pretty much the whole student body was easting out of my hands. Not to mention the bulk of the staff…

Those were busy years, where I honed my mind to a razor, worked my gangly body into something graceful and useful. It amuses me now to realize how clueless I was to several key aspects of my power. First, I had no concept of my own attractiveness. I was the useless child, goofy tall with huge and eerily green eyes and a crazed mane of sunrise red hair that I was not allowed to cut short.

Then eleven was passing me up and a morass of redundant awareness began to take sharp focus. Does anyone really remember puberty? The twisting of our bodies and hormones, the ache of change and needs we don’t understand? Very quickly I grasped some of the burn, suddenly seeing the people around me with completely different eyes. My fellow students filling out same as I was, growing curves and bulges and hair that bore a faint resemblance to the adults. And, oh my, did I start to notice the adults!

The men were intriguing in that they were so impossibly different. That was a clinical fascination, as I knew I wasn’t wired like most of the giggling teen girls that were my peers.

Then, there was the women. To this day, I smile at the fond memories of teachers and nurses and administrators, in their severe suits and smooth hose hugging round calves and knees and ankles. How I lusted after them! Young or old, it mattered little to me. Smooth skinned or wrinkled with time, I loved them all. Skinny, voluptuous, short, tall, fat, dark, light, black white, purple, green or pink, I didn’t care! I wanted to gobble them all up. Ah, the good ole days…

Before I could get completely overwhelmed, grade school was over and I reluctantly returned to the parents I hated. That was a long, long summer, let me tell you. Good thing for Central Park, or I’d have gone insane. Boy, the things I learned there… Since my parents had a coveted apartment overlooking the Park, I’d grown up watching the seasons change in its rectangular lushness, and escaped there constantly. As long as I accommodated my parents occasional need to trot me out and show me off, they let me run loose.

It was, strangely, the kindest thing they could have done for me. I befriended the artists, the nuts, the wandering packs of displaced disco teens that seemed fascinated with my striking looks. There were a few bastards, sure, but the only time I was ever afraid was when that one creep yanked me into his car. I have no clue if he survived the small knife I introduced his groin to. Frankly, I don’t care. Bet the cops had a fun time figuring that particular minor traffic accident out! A well-practiced and iron-clad ‘don’t fuck with me’ attitude was amazingly effective armor, despite the temptation of my unusual looks.

That summer, I never indulged the burning desire I felt towards my fellow females, but let it simmer into a controllable ache. The right time would come, and until then, I would be patient. Sure enough, my parents announced proudly that I would be attending Eastland School for Girls. Oh ick, was all I could think, but graciously acquiesced to their wishes.

Eastland is where all the elite sends their daughters, and I knew that my bullying days were numbered unless I adapted fast. This is where we girls learned to move like the biggest political fish, only on a smaller stage in our little pond. Those that didn’t learn, were exiled by the heavy hitters into lonely nerd-dom. I would be damned if any of those brats would get the best of me! There were girls I knew from my grade school and I gathered them around me before sending out feelers for new recruits. That was the grind of my life for the next two years at Eastland. Power plays amidst the elite, broken up by recreation and schoolwork. Thankfully, they were a very adept school, and that education held me over through the approaching bad times.

In order to protect myself, I refrained from the bulk of experimenting going on around me, and became somewhat of an untouchable, intimidating saint of virtue. Oh, I didn’t do it for virtue’s sake, but distractions were deadly in our mind games. There was no place for alcohol or drugs… or sex in my life. Hell, I even turned in several of my own when their monkeying around nearly got the rest of us in trouble. I was a ruthless dictator. It was my way or the highway and the students all knew it. The staff knew I was different then the rest of the sheep, but never could quite figure it out.

I wasn’t entirely ‘virginal’. There were several times that the lure of a pretty face or a tight body would drive me a little crazy. Those girls I sent on their way, sore, satisfied and full of stories that raised me to near-mythical status in the halls of Eastland. Kissing my fellow teens ruthlessly, their nubile bodies bent back over tables or chairs, my hand exploring under our oh-so-proper skirts, those were the good days. It was an idyll that couldn’t last.

When I was just a couple months into my fourteenth year, I was caught ‘molesting’ a fellow student by a faceless administrator and dragged off to the principal. Listening to the tight-faced woman explaining my transgression to my parents over the phone while I stood there silently, made me angrier than I had ever been before.

When Principal Jenners handed over the phone, malicious triumph in her eyes, something snapped inside me. How dare these people decide what the hell was best for me? I had been doing just fine by myself my entire life! So, I stared at the phone for a long moment, slowly understanding what I was about to do would forever alter my life.

I quietly, calmly, hung the phone up and leveled a glower at the principal that, looking back, must have truly frightened the woman. Without a word, I left the office, gathered my few things, emptied out my bank account and fled.

Well, there was that quick side trip to a garage where my father kept his most precious toys. I still have the antique Harley Davidson I’m sure he’d like back. Tough shit, it’s mine now.

So, here I was, fourteen years old, in my father’s riding leathers, roaring away from New York like my tail was on fire. Luckily, I’d thought ahead and had a false ID made the summer before and I eventually found myself in Las Vegas, of all places. Dunno why the desert stopped my headlong flight, but something about its frontier and gangster charm appealed to me. Exhausted and completely alone for the first time in my life, I handed over cash for a motel room and slept off the adrenaline and fear.

For a few days, I skulked about the strip, slowly widening my wanderings until the shadows started to scare me. Little by little, I started to explore those frightening places, where there were predators much scarier than I.

Good thing Spike found me.

Yes, her street name really was Spike. And no one sane would make fun of the name. Spike was the Hell’s Angel spawn of the Eurythmics, with shorn, bleached white hair and well-loved leathers. It wasn’t easy to get in with her, but she liked my gangly good looks and my fierce and fearful personality.

I was a protégé of sorts to Spike, and essentially her property. Since she really wasn’t into girls, it was more of a business arrangement than anything else. Luckily, Spike and the rest of the Sand Tornados never got me into the prostitution that made most of their money. I became an enforcer… until, after a year of spindly androgyny, I started truly growing into my looks.

The gang was quick to start pressuring me into becoming more than just an enforcer, but I was terrified about prostitution or porn. Then Joey, one of the newbies, pointed me in the direction of a local photographer, who specialized in scandalous poses of girls.

He was thrilled, dressing me like a Japanese salaryman’s wet dream, makeup thick and exaggerated, backgrounds stark and monochromatic. They were fascinating photos, with my Irish coloring and anxious, ferocious eyes.

Anastasia tells me that it was the photos that first attracted her. Thankfully, she found me before an unwanted predator decided to take a bite out of me. We were at the usual hangout, a pool hall on the east side where the proprietor was a brother of one of the girls.

The place went silent when she walked in.

You ever had a really weird experience where someone or something is completely out of context? Like an airplane landing in Central Park, or a troop of monkeys at a black-tie shindig? If aliens had landed and turned us into guinea pigs, it would have been less startling then this singular woman. Flashing eyes swept over us, each being measured and discounted in an instant.

Until her gaze landed on me.

And I was breathless beneath the intensity.

No one moved as the woman strode in like she owned the place. She was on the small side of average, with a quick, aggressive walk made all the more dramatic by painfully high heels, dark chestnut hair drawn up into a brutal French twist. I shrank away from the drama of her hazel eyes, looking down at the dirty linoleum.

“I’ve been looking for you.” That voice was imprinted on me then and there. “There is much I can teach you, Tiger Cub,” she promised silkily, and I wanted to look up and meet those amazing eyes, but I didn’t dare. “You may raise you gaze.” How could she know what I was thinking? Confused and more than a little lost in the face of her power, I timidly looked up, and was instantly enraptured by her smile. “Beautiful creature, you deserve more than this. Come with me and I can provide you with a future.”

It was the stupidest, most insane thing I had ever done, following this charismatic stranger into the bright afternoon. It was also the best damn thing I’d ever done for myself. Trying to describe my early life with Anastasia Rogers, the Lady Heartsblood, would be too hard. It was love and discipline and expanding horizons and endless, wet, frustrated need.

You see, My Lady would not touch me. It was early in my fifteenth year when I joined her life and budding leather empire in the City of Sin.

I grew up with the clubs, and a succession of sexual slaves that I hated because they were in a different class than I was. But I stubbornly remained with my beloved mentor, determined to be a student that would never be surpassed. Within a couple months, I was My Lady’s personal ‘houseboy’ and was in charge of her personal space. Being underfoot constantly was a torture for us both, and the discipline grew more and more intimate.

Thankfully, the State of Nevada granted my wardship papers only days before my sixteenth birthday. It took all of my powers of persuasion to convince Anastasia I was more than ready, she was still understandably hesitant of my young age, but I was utterly certain of my feelings for her. So, by the time I had proven myself and Anastasia tied me down in the dungeon and screwed me long and slow and sweet, I was out of my mind. Two days after that first night, I lay still beneath the Red Queen’s tattooing needle and watched her imprint My Lady’s symbol over my hard sternum.

Much happier with my discipline now that I had a worthy reward, I knuckled down to really learn My Lady’s lifestyle. It quickly became apparent that I was only comfortable submitting to her, and began learning the other end of the whip, so to speak.

We were both lucky to have Tessa come into our lives around that same time, and fulfill needs neither of us was even truly aware of. When Anastasia decided to keep her, all three of us were thrilled. My seventeenth year was spent in pure happiness with my lovers, but as eighteen approached, I began to feel strangely restless.

Where the military angle came from is still a bit of a mystery to me. I think that it had to do with proving something to myself. My entire life had been spent in the shadows of others, my parents, Spike, Anastasia. The military would offer me the chance to be part of a larger whole, as I was comfortable with, as well a chance to excel as an individual. The Marines were too generic, the Army too big. It came down to the Navy or the Air Force. The more cerebral bent of the Air Force hooked me in. Also, the other branches have a tendency to sneer at the Air Force, seeing us as a bunch of half-witted eggheads. While there are certainly plenty of those types, but it’s an unfair stereotype. Being an underdog had a definite appeal to me, so it was a good arrangement.

Anastasia had gone to great pains to make me a ward of the State of Nevada, so that I had a legitimate background. There were extensive security checks, including the Air Force contacting my parents. It wasn’t a big shock to me that my mother was speechless and my father was more concerned about his still-missing bike. I explained to the officer that I was a brainless kid when I ran away from home and had grown out of that stupidity. The bike? I flat-out lied that I had trashed it, showing a few bondage scars and a false medical report as proof. Since my parents had been about as charming as tooth decay, the officer cut me some slack.

It still bothers me sometimes that I can’t talk about my work to my chosen family, but what can I do? After boot camp, I was sent off for more extensive training in mechanics and electronics. Oddly, I ended up at the Pentagon as a tech for the endless miles of wire and hardware that was the pulse of our national security. That was how I ended up at Stargate Command. It’s Sam’s fault, really. Sweet, bubbly, brilliant Lieutenant JG Samantha Carter had decided to befriend me only days after arriving. Safety in numbers and all that. Our combined looks and towering heights was quite the running gag in the halls for awhile. There were other woman soldiers that joined us off and on, even some civilians, but it was mostly we two. So, Sam remained behind in DC while I was shipped off to Colorado Springs to put my nuts and bolts expertise to good use.

That was how I ended up in the godforsaken bowels of Cheyenne Mountain. I was there to watch the enormous ring of alien metal installed and rigged to all manner of human technology, and babysit and coddle all the extensive human technology that was on the reclusive base. We threw everything we could at it, trying to get any kind of response from the inert Stargate. I was there when Daniel Jackson cracked the code, found the secret, realized where X marks the spot. I was there when O’Neill and company left earth, and when they came scrambling back, leaving Ra to die in nuclear conflagration.

I was there when Apophis reactivated the Gate, catching us completely off guard. Enough time had passed since Ra, that we had grown complacent that we had destroyed the only threat that could come through the ring. Ah, such is the human ego. After Apophis and his goons made short work of us, I’ve still got a scar from that, I woke to find myself buried beneath a dog pile of my fellow soldiers. Looking back, I’m damn glad I ended up on the bottom. I’d hate to think that Apophis would have probably been intrigued by my stature and coloring. Being a Goa’uld is on my list of things to avoid, with my life, if necessary.

Two good things came from Apophis entering our lives. First, I was no longer working with a chunk of inert alien machinery that was presumably useless. Suddenly, the SGC was a hotbed of activity. Second, Sam Carter was back in my life. We’ve always had a strange relationship, me and Sam. I swear the woman barely knows I exist most of the time, she’s such a nerd, bless her heart. The torch I’ve carried for many years has never gone out, sure, but it’s an ache I barely notice anymore. I will say that I was ready to beat my head against my desk when I found out that Art and Janet had bagged her. All these years, straight-as-an-arrow Sam was merely being her usual clueless self…

Good thing Darya reeled me in. The happiness I’ve found with that woman and little Emily leaves me breathless every day. It’s a perfection I would have never known how to wish for, because I would have never known what to ask for. My Dare is a complex package of strength and pain, of humor and brilliance, of accomplishments and taking chances. Her smooth and jagged edges somehow mesh with mine to make a surprisingly cohesive picture. Emily is my ray of sunshine and keeps me grounded to what really matters.

Together, the Farazell and Fraiser clans have managed to build out own little empire with a gaggle of puppies underfoot. Both the four and two legged kind. I’ve found peace with this gargantuan family that stretches beyond this city, and sometimes even beyond this world.


End file.
